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Chapter Twenty-Three-Fallen and Befallen

The minute Orion stood up in the Great Hall and started swaggering towards the Gryffindor table, Harry knew that he was probably going to have to bring the punishment he'd thought up into play.

Everyone was going silent and staring. Harry had thought Orion would apologize in private, or at least signal Charlus to follow him outside. But no, of course not. Of course Orion bloody Black had to be as bloody dramatic as possible.

Hell, Harry thought in irritation.

"I'm sorry for our confrontation earlier in the week. It was wrong of me."

Harry narrowed his eyes. That sounded sincere, but—

"You think I'm going to believe your apology, Black?"

"Yes," Orion said. If he could feel Harry glaring at his back, he gave no sign of it. "You see, I made a little speech in the corridor about my feelings towards your family rejecting, as I saw it, my friend and fellow Slytherin, Harry Potter. It's been brought to my attention that I was wrong, and your family didn't abuse or neglect him. So I'm admitting in public that I'm wrong, and that means you'll know I'm not lying."

"Ah." Charlus looked relieved. Harry thought about getting up and going over to strangle Orion with his bare hands, because he knew that Charlus wouldn't be relieved in a second. "Apology accepted, Black."

"Good." Orion sounded light and airy. "In a way, it's a relief."

Goddamnit, Orion. Charlus, don't take the bait—

"Why's that?"

Harry scowled. Obviously telepathy didn't work with members of his family that he'd time traveled to meet, for all that he wished it did.

"It means that I was wrong about your family committing crimes against my friend, but right about the stupidity that appears to run in your line."

Oh, for fuck's sake, Harry thought, and rose to his feet. Then he considered if Orion would actually stop speaking if he went over to the Gryffindor table, and had to concede that he probably wouldn't.

"Any pureblood family worthy of the name would have snapped up someone this impressive immediately. That you decided not to…" Orion gave a disdainful little shrug "I suppose you can't be blamed for something that's a hereditary trait, but still. Disappointing. And it proves that Harry really is no relation of yours."

Orion is delusional. Holy hell.

From the way that Orion was strutting back across the Great Hall, he didn't think so. And Harry could hear the excited whispers of people next to him at the Slytherin table as they leaned over to gossip with each other. They didn't appear to think Orion was delusional, either, which made Harry just stare at their backs.

Really? You think that his antagonizing someone like that over someone he's known for a few months, and even knows isn't a pureblood, is a good idea?

Either way, though, it didn't matter much. Orion had said what he apparently believed, but he had said it as much to antagonize the Potters as he had to appeal to Harry. From the way he looked as he came back to the table and sat in front of Harry—not where he'd been sitting before—he even knew it. "Let me have it," he said softly.

"You said that," Harry said. He could have found harder words, but Orion was so deep in delusion, or desperation to escape from Riddle, that they wouldn't have reached him, anyway. "Why in the world—"

"I had to know something."

"What did you have to know, for Merlin's sake?"

"If I could do something like that," Orion said, and leaned forwards a little, "and you could refrain from cursing me."

"Of course I wasn't going to—"

Orion raised an eyebrow at him. He didn't look down the table at Riddle. He didn't have to.

Harry himself couldn't help doing that for a second, but he didn't think it would make Riddle any more suspicious than he already was (which was "very"). He sat back and nodded at Orion, then spoke what he truly believed to be the case.

"You wanted to show me that you have a mind of your own and you aren't going to just be a good little follower."

Orion looked flustered, maybe because of the way that Harry had phrased it, but he nodded.

"You wanted to know if I would get upset at you doing the apology, but in your own way, and slipping in another insult," Harry said. It was becoming clearer and clearer that he would have to use the punishment he had thought of after all, and just hope that it didn't make things worse.

Orion nodded again.

"And you wanted to know if I would get upset about you praising me in public, and making it obvious why you—made the choices you did." Harry withheld a grimace on the last words. Orion had made some choices, yes, but it wasn't like Harry had managed to discourage him from making them, so he was partially at fault, too.

Orion nodded again. He was staring at Harry with his lips slightly parted, and Harry wondered if he was even aware of that. Did he know just how much he was giving away? How weak he was making himself look? How much he was leaving himself open to attack by Slytherins who followed Riddle?

"So," Harry said, and smiled. Here we go. Either he stops with this kind of bollocks, or he gives up on me and saves himself. "This is my reaction. I'm not going to ask you to offer another apology, because frankly that's useless. And the kinds of things you said are probably going to be more useful in the war with Riddle than not."

At least, Harry hoped so. He had been a bad judge of that kind of thing before, though.

"But I do have to react. And your punishment is that I'm not going to speak to you for three days, so next time you decide to insult someone when I've asked you to apologize you can think about the consequences." Harry snatched up the apple that was left on his plate and left the Slytherin table with one more nod to Orion.

He could feel Orion watching him, and probably Riddle and Walburga Black and some other people at the table. He tried his best to keep his face calm and not let it bother him. He had made his statement. He had acted as Orion would probably expect him to act, or if not Orion, other people.

If he was really a leader, and Orion was really loyal to him, then Harry couldn't stand by while Orion ran around and trampled over other people's free will. And that was the case whether Orion was insulting Charlus Potter or someone else.

Part of Harry hoped Orion would listen. Part of him hoped Orion would give up on him, so that Harry stood more of a chance of setting all the Knights of Walpurgis free of any bonds they had, rather than binding them to yet another leader they would end up disliking.

Let it work, Harry thought to himself, but he couldn't have said which thing he was hoping for most.

Harry moves in the instant after Orion realizes the chandelier is falling.

He dashes forwards, lighter on his feet than anyone should be able to move, and a Protego shoots out of his wand. It forms around Orion, the baby, and Harry, and spreads out in a dome above them and lances down to the floor. Harry throws himself across Helena's cradle, too, arms sprawled out and dangling on the stones, ducking his head.

Orion hears screams. He can't pay attention to them. He can't pay attention to anything but the chandelier coming down like the judgment of a god.

It hits Harry's Shield Charm—

And bounces.

Orion watches with his mouth open as the chandelier totters and balances there for a second, on nothing more than pure blue-silver magic, before it tilts to the side and breaks, scattering candles and crystals and gold and steel across the floor. Candles hit the stone and roll, some of them lighting minor fires. Orion watches them with numbness echoing through his belly. He knows that even if he wanted to help, he couldn't break through the Shield Charm to get to them.

And he knows, with a certainty that vibrates through his bones, that none of the fires or the spells someone might cast are getting through the shield, either.

Shrieks fill the room, and the world seems to snap back into place around Orion, his ears audibly popping. He whirls around to make sure Harry and the baby are all right, and sees Harry standing with Helena cradled close to his chest. His eyes are wide and his face pale, and the first thing he does is look straight at Orion before he slumps over with relief.

Orion blinks. Maybe Harry's first concern was for Dorcas and Aelfric's child, understandably, but he does want to make sure Orion is safe, too.

Orion would like to take Harry somewhere and snog the pants off him.

But for the moment, there are people running around calming the fires, and avoiding still rolling pieces of metal and glass and crystal, and cleaning up the jagged remains of the chandelier, and hammering on the Shield Charm. Orion walks over to stand beside Harry, one hand on his shoulder.

"I think you should let them in," he says calmly.

"How can I?" Harry snarls at him, and this close, Orion can feel the lightning-like crackle of his magic, as furious as Harry is. He's only restraining it because otherwise it might hurt the wailing Helena, Orion knows. "What if some of them are the people who tried to hurt her?"

"Because two of the people who are right outside the shield are Dorcas and Aelfric," Orion says dryly, tilting his head to where the elder Potters are standing and staring in. "They certainly won't hurt their own daughter."

Harry gives a mutter that sounds like "you'd be surprised," but grudgingly makes a small crack in the Shield Charm that forms a low doorway the Potters can duck through. Dorcas is first, reaching out for Helena and holding her close.

Aelfric stares at Harry and then at Orion. He says, "Good job you were there."

"Yes," Dorcas says softly. Orion sees her lower lip trembling, but also her jaw clenching down what must be more fury. Aelfric turns and lays an arm across her shoulders, bending over to make soothing noises to his daughter. Helena finally stops crying.

Orion makes a note to find some charms that will calm him down from being annoyed by noises like that when he and Harry become parents. He's honestly not sure that he wouldn't have to walk away and leave his kids to house-elves sometimes if they howled like that all the time.

"Is she all right?" Harry asks. Orion opens his mouth to ask how Harry doesn't know that, but then realizes that he's shaking with the effort of holding his magic back. Harry might have thought he accidentally hurt Helena despite all his efforts not to.

"She's fine," Aelfric says, in a tone that Orion thinks is meant to be soothing to both Harry and the baby. "Just had a bit of a shock, and then neither her Mum nor her Dad were right there."

"No. But I know who did this." Dorcas takes a deep breath and walks towards Harry. He looks frozen, and Orion is debating whether to jump in or not when Dorcas hugs Harry with her free arm. "Thank you," she breathes.

"Um. You're welcome," Harry says.

"Who did it?" Orion asks. If Dorcas is sure she knows, it sounds like it probably isn't connected to Riddle and his insane grudge against Harry, but Orion would still like to be the judge of that.

"Someone who wanted me to brew the potion we used to create Helena for him," Dorcas says, her eyes flinty. "He wants another child and his wife wants no more. I told him that I couldn't do that unless he was going to raise the child and conduct the ritual of creation with someone other than his wife, and I would need to see the Galleons up front. He grew so furious that he made threats in a Howler. I didn't take them seriously because both Aelfric and I have received them before." Her hand closes into a fist behind Harry's shoulder. "But rest assured, I never thought he would go this far. We wouldn't have held the party if we didn't believe that our children and all the guests would be perfectly safe."

She's talking to Orion more than Harry, Orion sees. Well, he's probably the one who looks more murderous over Harry's safety. He nods once. "Thank you for clarifying that, Mrs. Potter."

"And you're sure it was him and there's no more danger to Helena?" Harry asks. He looks reluctant to let the littlest Potter back outside the Shield Charm. Orion can sort of understand that, given that Helena is more or less his distant cousin, and one he probably never met in his own time.

"Yes, I'm sure," Dorcas says, and steps back, this time gazing at Harry. "The Howler included a threat about fire falling that I didn't understand at the time. I do now. He probably intended to bring down the chandelier no matter who was under it, but shortly after that, we announced our plans to highlight Helena."

"And he got through the wards?" Harry asks in alarm.

"He sent a house-elf with part of the payment," Dorcas whispers. "And almost surely, instructions to commit sabotage."

Orion grimaces. "Please tell us who this is."

"I would prefer that you leave it to me."

"Only if you tell us at least the name." Orion leans forwards a little, ignoring the way that Dorcas's lips thin. "We need to know if he bears a grudge against Harry for stopping him. At the very least, we need to know not to accept gifts from him."

Dorcas sighs and glances at Aelfric. Then she says, "On your word that you won't attempt to interfere or take revenge on him yourself unless he comes after you or Harry again."

"My word."

"My word," Harry says after another moment. Orion wonders if Harry didn't want to swear, although it would probably be more about protecting Helena than himself.

Dorcas leans nearer and whispers, "Xavier Lestrange."

Orion's eyes narrow. He's the uncle of Lestrange at school, and now that he thinks about it, Orion thinks he can remember Lestrange's wife deciding early on that she didn't want another child after their second one. He's probably unlikely to be a direct danger to Harry, but his nephew might be.

"We'll be on the watch for him," Orion says, because that's all he can say unless Lestrange makes an aggressive move soon. Either of them, really. But they go back to Hogwarts tomorrow, so that might be on the horizon.

"Thank you for telling us," Harry says softly, and reaches out to put a hand on the sleeping baby's foot. Helena moves a hand in her sleep. Harry's face is so soft that Orion doubts he'll have any opposition to Orion's plan of several children. "I appreciate it."

"And thank you for being here," Dorcas says back, tears glimmering around the edges of her eyelids for an instant before she stifles them. "There's no telling what might have happened if you weren't." She closes her eyes and bows her head. "Whether or not you ever live with us, we owe you a debt, Harry Potter."

Harry looks hilariously uncomfortable. Orion can think things like that are hilarious, now that everyone is safe. He wraps his arm around Harry's shoulders and squeezes with a warm smile. "If we pay you for the potion later, that will more than repay the debt, I think," he says.

"For you, I'd gladly brew it."

The noise of the guests outside the Shield Charm is starting to get more than impatient, so Dorcas and Aelfric turn and walk back through the little door Harry opened. Whatever they say to the crowd gets a cheer, and Harry finally relaxes enough to move his wand and banish the large Shield Charm.

Harry leans against Orion with a sigh. Orion strokes his hair and smiles at some of the glances being directed their way. Yes, a lot of the people here probably wish they had a partner as powerful and protective as Harry. Too bad for them that Orion found him first.

"Wow," Harry whispers.

"What?" Orion pitches his voice low.

"If it's going to be like that every time one of our children is in danger…I still want them, but it's going to be hard," Harry says, and frowns down at his hands before casting a glance in the direction of Dorcas and Helena again.

Orion buries his smile. Harry can say that, and it's possible that wanting to hold the baby is more about her being a Potter relative than just wanting a child in general, but he's also talking as though their future together is all but assured.

Orion intends to take any steps necessary to see that it is.